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THIRD DIVISION
DECISION
REYES, J.:
Cadiz then filed with the Labor Arbiter (LA) a complaint for Unfair
Labor Practice, Constructive Dismissal, Non-Payment of Wages and
4
Damages with prayer for Reinstatement.
In its Decision5 dated April 12, 2007, the LA found that Cadiz's
indefinite suspension amounted to a constructive dismissal; nevertheless, the
LA ruled that Cadiz was not illegally dismissed as there was just cause for
her dismissal, that is, she engaged in premarital sexual relations with her
boyfriend resulting in a pregnancy out of wedlock. 6 The LA further stated
that her "immoral conduct x x x [was] magnified as serious misconduct not
only by her getting pregnant as a result thereof before and without marriage,
but more than that, also by the fact that Brent is an institution of the
Episcopal Church in the Philippines operating both a hospital and college
where [Cadiz] was employed." 7 The LA also ruled that she was not entitled
to reinstatement "at least until she marries her boyfriend," to backwages and
vacation/sick leave pay. Brent, however, manifested that it was willing to
pay her 13th month pay. The dispositive portion of the decision reads:
All other charges and claims are hereby dismissed for lack of
merit.
SO ORDERED. 8
Id. at 50.
Rendered by Executive Labor Arbiter Rhett Julius J. Plagata; id. at 52-58.
6
Id. at 55-56.
7
Id. at 56.
Id. at 57-58.
Cadiz appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC),
which affirmed the LA decision in its Resolution9 dated December 10, 2007.
Her motion for reconsideration having been denied by the NLRC in its
Resolution 10 dated February 29, 2008, Cadiz elevated her case to the CA on
petition for certiorari under Rule 65.
Ruling of the CA
I
THE HONORABLE [NLRC] GRAVELY ABUSED ITS
DISCRETION WHEN IT HELD THAT [CADIZ'S]
IMPREGNATION OUTSIDE OF WEDLOCK IS A GROUND
FOR THE TERMINATION OF [CADIZ'S] EMPLOYMENT 14
II
THE [NLRC] COMMITTED GRAVE ABUSE OF
DISCRETION WHEN IT UPHELD THE DISMISSAL OF
[CADIZ] ON THE GROUND THAT THE INDEFINITE
SUSPENSION WAS VALID AND REQUIRED [CADIZ] TO
FIRST ENTER INTO MARRIAGE BEFORE SHE CAN BE
ADMITTED BACK TO HER EMPLOYMENT 15
9
Id. at 59-61.
10
Id. at 62-63.
II
Id. at 64-64A.
12
Id. at 65-67.
13
Id. at 67.
14
Id. at 21-22.
15
Id. at 28.
III
RESPONDENT [NLRC] GRAVELY ABUSED ITS
DISCRETION WHEN IT DENIED [CADIZ'S] CLAIM FOR
BACKWAGES, ALLOWANCES, SICK LEAVE PAY,
MATERNITY PAY AND MORAL AND EXEMPLARY
16
DAMAGES AND ATTORNEY'S FEES
IV
THE [CA] MISPLACED APPLICATION OF TI-IE
MATERIAL DATA RULE RESULTING TO GRAVE ABUSE
17
OF DISCRETION WHEN IT DISMISSED THE APPEAL
Brent, meanwhile, adopts and reiterates its position before the LA and
the NLRC that Cadiz's arguments are irrational and out of context. Brent
argues, among others, that for Cadiz to limit acts of immorality only to
extra-marital affairs is to "change the norms, beliefs, teachings and practices
of BRENT as a Church institution of the x x x Episcopal Church in the
Philippines." 19
Ordinarily, the Court will simply gloss over the arguments raised by
Cadiz, given that the main matter dealt with by the CA were the infirmities
found in the petition and which caused the dismissal of her case before it. In
view, however, of the significance of the issues involved in Cadiz's
dismissal from employment, the Court will resolve the petition including the
substantial grounds raised herein.
16
Id. at 36.
17
Id. at 38.
;(
18
Id. at 21-44.
19
Id. at 86-87.
upholding her dismissal from employment.
The CA also dismissed the petition for failure to attach the registry
receipt in the affidavit of service. 23 Cadiz points out, on the other hand, that
the registry receipt number was indicated in the petition and this constitutes
substantial compliance with the requirement. What the rule requires,
however, is that the registry receipt must be appended to the paper being
served. 24 Clearly, mere indication of the registry receipt numbers will not
suffice. In fact, the absence of the registry receipts amounts to lack of proof
of service. 25 Nevertheless, despite this defect, the Court finds that the ends
of substantial justice would be better served by relaxing the application of
26
technical rules of procedure. With regard to counsel's failure to indicate
the place where the IBP and PTR receipts were issued, there was substantial
20
Sara lee Philippines, Inc. v. Macatlang, G.R. No. 180147, June 4, 2014, 724 SCRA 552, 573-574.
21
Id.; Barra v. Civil Service Commission, 706 Phil. 523, 526(2013).
22
See CA rollo, p. 4.
23
Section 13, Rule 13 of the Rules of Court provides, in part:
If service is made by registered mail, proof shall be made by such affidavit and the registry receipt issued
by the mailing office. The registry return card shall be filed immediately upon its receipt by the sender, or
in lieu thereof the unclaimed letter together with the certified or sworn copy of the notice given by the
postmaster to the addressee.
24
Fortune Life Insurance Company, Inc. v. Commission on Audit (COA) Proper; COA Regional
Office No. VI-Western Visayas; Audit Group LGS-B, Province of Antique; and Provincial Government of
Antique, G.R. No. 213525, January 27, 2015.
25
The Government of the Philippines v. Aballe, 520 Phil. 181, 190 (2006).
26
PanaRa v. CA, 534 Phil. 809, 816 (2006).
compliance with the requirement since it was indicated in the verification
and certification of non-forum shopping, as correctly argued by Cadiz's
27
lawyer.
Time and again, the Court has emphasized that rules of procedure are
designed to secure substantial justice. These are mere tools to expedite the
decision or resolution of cases and if their strict and rigid application would
28
frustrate rather than promote substantial justice, then it must be avoided.
Both the LA and the NLRC upheld Cadiz's dismissal as one attended
with just cause. The LA, while ruling that Cadiz's indefinite suspension was
tantamount to a constructive dismissal, nevertheless found that there was just
cause for her dismissal. According to the LA, "there was just cause therefor,
consisting in her engaging in premarital sexual relations with Carl Cadiz,
allegedly her boyfriend, resulting in her becoming pregnant out of
wedlock." 29 The LA deemed said act to be immoral, which was punishable
by dismissal under Brent's rules and which likewise constituted serious
misconduct under Article 282( a) of the Labor Code. The LA also opined
that since Cadiz was Brent's Human Resource Officer in charge of
implementing its rules against immoral conduct, she should have been the
"epitome of proper conduct." 30 The LA ruled:
27
See CA rollo, p. 28.
28
Barroga v. Data Center College of"the Philippines, et al., 667 Phil. 808, 818 (2011).
29
Rollo, p. 56.
30
Id.
31
Id.
;(
The Court, however, cannot subscribe to the labor tribunals'
conclusions.
CATEGORY IV
In accordance with Republic Act No. 1052, 33 the following are just cause
for terminating an employment of an employee without a definite period:
xx xx
xx xx
. concub'mage, b'igamy. 34
c. Immora1ity,
32
Id.
33
AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE MANNER OF TERMINATING EMPLOYMENT WITHOUT
A DEFINITE PERIOD IN A COMMERCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, OR AGRICULTURAL,
ESTABLISHMENT OR ENTERPRISE (approved on June 12, 1954), which has been repealed by
Presidential Decree No. 442 or the Labor Code of the Philippines (effective November 1, 1974). See
National labor Union v. Secretary qflabor, G.R. No. L-41459, December 18, 1987, 156 SCRA 592.
34
NLRC records, Vol. I, pp. 77-78.
35
Id. at 81.
36
37
Id. at 54.
G.R. No. 187226, January 28, 2015. j
,
38
Rollo, p. 56.
39
NLRC records, Vol. I, pp. 53-54.
;(
40
Supra note 37.
41
Id.
The totality of the circumstances of this case does not justify the
conclusion that Cadiz committed acts of immorality. Similar to Leus, Cadiz
and her boyfriend were both single and had no legal impediment to marry at
the time she committed the alleged immoral conduct. In fact, they
eventually married on April 15, 2008. 42 Aside from these, the labor
tribunals' respective conclusion that Cadiz's "indiscretion" "scandalized the
Brent community" is speculative, at most, and there is no proof adduced by
Brent to support such sweeping conclusion. Even Brent admitted that it
came to know of Cadiz's "situation" only when her pregnancy became
manifest. 43 Brent also conceded that "[a]t the time [Cadiz] and Carl R.
Cadiz were just carrying on their boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, there was
no knowledge or evidence by [Brent] that they were engaged also in
premarital sex." 44 This only goes to show that Cadiz did not flaunt her
premarital relations with her boyfriend and it was not carried on under
scandalous or disgraceful circumstances. As declared in Leus, "there is no
law which penalizes an unmarried mother by reason of her sexual conduct or
proscribes the consensual sexual activity between two unmarried persons;
that neither does such situation contravene[s] any fundamental state policy
enshrined in the Constitution. " 45 The fact that Brent is a sectarian institution
does not automatically subject Cadiz to its religious standard of morality
absent an express statement in its manual of personnel policy and
regulations, prescribing such religious standard as gauge as these regulations
create the obligation on both the employee and the employer to abide by the
same. 46
Brent, likewise, cannot resort to the MRPS because the Court already
stressed in Leus that "premarital sexual relations between two consenting
adults who have no impediment to marry each other, and, consequently,
conceiving a child out of wedlock, gauged from a purely public and secular
view of morality, does not amount to a disgraceful or immoral conduct under
Section 94(e) of the 1992 MRPS." 47
42
Rollo, p. 22.
43
Id. at 88.
44
NLRC records, Vol. 2, p. 64.
45
Supra note 37.
46
See Abbott Laboratories, Philippines v. Alcaraz, G.R. No. 192571, July 23, 2013, 70 I SCRA 682.
47
Supra note 37.
48
lay-off of workers, and discipline, dismissal, and recall of employees." In
this case, Brent imposed on Cadiz the condition that she subsequently
contract marriage with her then boyfriend for her to be reinstated.
According to Brent, this is "in consonance with the policy against
encouraging illicit or common-law relations that would subvert the
49
sacrament of marriage."
48
Peckson v. Robinsons Supermarket Corporation, G.R. No. 198534, July 3, 2013, 700 SCRA 668,
678-679, citing Rural Bank ofCantilan, Inc. v. Ju/ve, 545 Phil. 619, 624 (2007).
49
NLRC records, Vol. 1, p. 57.
;1
50
Article Xlll, Section 3.
51
Approved on August 14, 2009.
52
53
Section I 9(b ).
See Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Company v. NLRC, 338 Phil. I 093 (1997).
54
Star Paper Corporation v. Simhol, 521 Phil. 364, 375 (2006).
said condition.
The Court also finds that Cadiz is only entitled to limited backwages.
Generally, the computation of backwages is reckoned from the date of illegal
dismissal until actual reinstatement. 59 In case separation pay is ordered in
lieu of reinstatement or reinstatement is waived by the employee, backwages
is computed from the time of dismissal until the finality of the decision
ordering separation pay. 60 Jurisprudence further clarified that the period for
computing the backwages during the period of appeal should end on the date
that a higher court reversed the labor arbitration ruling of illegal dismissal. 61
If applied in Cadiz's case, then the computation of backwages should be
from November 17, 2006, which was the time of her illegal dismissal, until
the date of promulgation of this decision. Nevertheless, the Court has also
recognized that the constitutional policy of providing full protection to labor
is not intended to oppress or destroy management. 62 The Court notes that at
the time of Cadiz's indefinite suspension from employment, Leus was yet to
be decided by the Comi. Moreover, Brent was acting in good faith and on
55
Bani Rural Bank, Inc. v. De Guzman, G.R. No. 170904, November 13, 2013, 709 SCRA
330, 349-350.
56
Bordomeo, et al. v. CA, et al., 704 Phil. 278, 300(2013).
57
RoIlo, p. 50.
58
Supra note 56.
59
LABOR CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Article 279.
60
Bani Rural Bank, Inc. v. De Guzman, supra note 55.
)
61
Wenphil Corporation v. Abing, G.R. No. 207983, April 7, 2014, 721 SCRA 126, 143.
62
Victory liner, Inc. v. Race, G.R. No. 164820, December 8, 2008, 573 SCRA 212, 221.
its honest belief that Cadiz's pregnancy out of wedlock constituted
immorality. Thus, fairness and equity dictate that the award of backwages
shall only be equivalent to one (1) year or P109,304.40, computed as
follows:
The monetary awards granted shall earn legal interest at the rate of six
percent (6%) per annum from the date of the finality of this Decision until
fully paid.
63
Lambert Pawnbrokers and .Jewelry Corporation, et al. v. Binamira, 639 Phil. 1, 15-16 (2010).
64
Pasos v. Philippine National Construction Corporation, G.R. No. 192394, July 3, 2013, 700
SCRA 608, 631.
SO ORDERED.
BIENVENIDO L. REYES
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
J. VELASCO, JR.
Justice
Chairperson
Associate Justice
ATTESTATION
I attest that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the
Court's Division.
Chairperson
CERTIFICATION
CE <C.,
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